The Stormcage's Lament
by Runt the Brave
Summary: "You'd better get down here, sir. She's doing it again!" Is jail really jail when you can come and go as you please? The Stormcage's perspective on Doctor River Song.


**A/N: My rather pathetic attempt at humor. Just the scene in The Impossible Astronaut made me wonder what the 'cage really thought of River Song. This particular story – like some of my others – has very little dialogue, and a lot of weird introspectiveness. It's a nice break from character driven original fiction where all my stupid characters do is talk. I really do dislike dialogue.**

**Spoilers: River-ness. Anything from Silence in the Library up through Day of the Moon is fair game.**

**Disclaimer: This is not brilliant. Authentic Doctor Who is brilliant. This must not be authentic Doctor Who.**

The Stormcage's Lament

The day actually started out fairly normal. There were no attempts at a mass breakout. No major public relation hassles. Just a normal day at the Stormcage Detention Facility. And yet, it was this day that would ever go down in Stormcage history as the worst thing that ever happened to the high security containment area. Because it was the day when _She_ arrived. A _She_ who would become so infamous among the guards and administrators that even first day recruits were warned about _Her_. Because not only did mention of _Her_ in the pronoun sense merit italics, but it was also _always_ capitalized. Not that such punctuation was always needed. Everyone knew who _She_ was.

_She_ arrived on the regularly scheduled prison transport, looking entirely liked a shocked young woman, barely out of girlhood, who had no idea what was happening. The teddy bear really did help that image. No one else of any importance arrived that day: a rogue Sitherleen who happened to interfere with a criminal investigation and ended up infringing himself; two Aokol-Human hybrids charged with the destruction of New Beijing; and a hardened human criminal named Bobfred Flatts. But _She_ stood out the most, simply because of the lost, innocent, terrified look about _Her._

There was an awful lot of pity given to that girl in the first couple of days. No one seemed to understand how _She_ warranted detainment in the highest security prison of all times. No one wanted to believe the reports of the destruction _She_ had caused. The guards gave _Her_ extra rations, they placed _Her_ in the best of cells, and treated _Her_ with respect. And _She_ still never let go of the teddy bear. And _She_ never said a word.

After a couple of weeks, the special treatment began to slide and _She_ became more and more reclusive, hiding in the very corner of _Her_ cell. With the teddy bear. A number of the guards had named the teddy bear The Horrifying Prince of Doom, just the make up for the fact that _She_ was so unimpressive. The Horrifying Prince of Doom was a small, chocolate colored bear, no larger than _Her_ head. He tended to sit on _Her_ knee and they would stare at each other for hours on end. Speculation abounded about the most mysterious of all of the Stormcage's inmates.

About a month into _Her_ imprisonment, He showed up. As there were multiple plain 'He's' in Stormcage history, He was referred to as, "He." "He? Which He?" "The-mad-crazy-looking-one-with-the-omnipotent-Stick." The Mad One With the Stick was something totally abnormal for the Stormcage guards. Even beyond _Her_ and the Horrifying Prince of Doom. The Mad One With the Stick showed up one relatively normal afternoon with a thermos of tea in one hand and a strange looking stick in the others. The Stormcage quickly learned to fear the Stick. Because the Stick could do almost anything and everything. The Mad One With The Stick strode through the hallways of the Stormcage until he reached _Her_ cell.

The cameras caught everything on tape, like they always. He pranced up to _Her_ cell and unlocked every single security system they had on the cell. The guards were going crazy, racing after him, almost panicked. The very fact that he had waltzed into the Stormcage, obviously intentionally, was probably enough to warrant an investigation into his arrest. The Mad One With the Stick stepped inside her cell and grinned. Grinned! And he _locked the door behind him._ The guards were pretty much going crazy right about then.

_She_ simply looked up at him, appearing completely un-estonished. The Horrifying Prince of Doom sat on her knee and peered up at the Mad One With the Stick with his beady, black eyes. Then _She_ spoke. It was so astonishing that those watching the tape needed to fast forward the footage and play it again. "Hello, Sweetie." _Her_ voice still sounded dull and sad, much like _Her_ overall body language, but it was... _She_ really could speak!

"Stormcage," said the Mad One With the Stick. He was laughing. "Fine pickle you've worked yourself into." He sat down on the bench beside _Her_, still laughing.

_She_ glared at him. "Spoilers." The two of them shared a snicker.

"Oh, I know." He smirked. At this point in the film, all present usually started talking very, very, very fast while trying to decipher the meaning behind behind their relatively simple conversation. The best psychiatrist were called in to decipher the meaning behind such seemingly normal small talk, but no one could figure either of the subjects out. While the psychiatrists deliberated, the guards tried to access the cell. Apparently, the Mad One With the Stick had both locked the two of them into the cell and all the guards out of the cell. It was a rather annoying turn of events for the administrators.

For the next three days _She_ and the Mad One With the Stick stayed in her cell. The omnipotent Stick blew out the cameras for most of the time, along with the microphones and listening devices. Most of the psychiatrists didn't want to think about what was happening and most of the guards took a perverse pleasure in discussing this latest twist in _Her _story. And then they were gone. A first day recruit just happened to be wandering down the hallway outside of _Her_ cell.

The door was hanging open and no one was inside. Predictably, chaos ensued. It wasn't until a senior guard named O'Conner went through _Her _cell with a fine toothed comb and found The Horrifying Prince of Doom with a note stuck between his little paws. O'Conner unwound the note and stared at it with surprise. It was... well... almost flirty. _She_ was being flirty, and _She_ was never this abrupt and forward. All the note said was _"I shall be back. Take care of the Prince for me."_ There the softest impression of lipstick pressed at the bottom of the note. The Stormcage quickly, quickly, quickly learned to fear the Lipstick. The Lipstick was dangerous.

Two days and a massive hassle of paperwork later, _She_ showed up just inside the Stormcage gates with a blue diary and a multicolored pen clutched in _Her_ hands. No one said a word. The psychiatrists were astonished. Who in the universe would ever escape from the highest security facility in the world and then come back? _She_ was becoming the most fascinating case in the universe. They were scared of _Her_ now. Because _She_ had escaped. And no one had ever escaped from the Stormcage. They threw _Her_ back in the cell with The Horrifying Prince of Doom.

For the next couple of days, the psychiatrists watched as _She_ scribbled away with the multicolored pen for forty-two hours straight. And it was exactly forty-two hours. No one knew why. But it seemed as if _She_ was timing things exactly to forty-two hours. Why forty-two? What significance did that particular number have in _Her_ life? The psychiatrists discussed that number for eighty-four hours without making any sense at all. That's the problem with psychiatrists. They over-analyze things. Psychiatrists. What a... special... kind of people.

After forty-two hours, _She_ put the little blue book in a drawer underneath her bed and settled in the corner with The Horrifying Prince of Doom. And _She_ then proceeded to confuse the Stormcage like crazy.

The next time _She_ had escaped,_ She_ had used the Lipstick and slipped past each and everyone of the guards. The administrators were not happy. The guards insisted that the administrators should try and guard _Her_ before they passed judgement. And so, when _She_ returned, the jail administrators sat outside her cell with high tech guns and wary faces. _She_ simply smirked at them. Three days after being placed on watch duty, one of the administrators ended up pressing the trigger on his gun and shooting a fellow beaurocratic pencil pusher. Of course, this caused a heap of paper for the jailors and the regular guards returned to their regular shifts.

After a few more, very successful, escapes, the psychiatrists suggested that having female guards might cut down on the ease of which _She_ escaped whenever _She_ had an errand to run. The idea was attempted, and it failed, almost as spectacularly as having administrators guard a prisoner. The Stormcage could simply not keep _Her_ imprisoned. And so, they began to slowly stop caring. Sure, each time a new head was installed at the top of the administrative process, they would want to know what was happening with _Her_ and why no one seemed to care, but after three weeks on the job, even new head wardens understood the jist of things. Each time _She_ turned up missing, the paperwork wouldn't be filed and the proper authorities would not be alerted. Eventually, it got to the point where no one but the psychiatrists paid any attention to _Her_ comings and _Her_ goings.

The Mad One With the Stick continued to show up on occasion, and his name slowly became the Mad-Cocky-Crazy-Insane-Protective-One-With-the-Magic-Blue-Box-and-Omnipotent-Stick-and-the-Ever-Present-Hero-Complex. Comings. Goings. The psychiatrists eventually decided that _She_ viewed the Stormcage more as a home, than a prison. As typical to most psychiatrists, they were completely wrong, not understanding the concept of self-sacrificial system may have been unorthodox, but it worked for them. At least, until the chruch decided that they should provide some of the worst criminals in human history a chance to redeem themselves.

The parole programs started with Bobfred Flatts, who escaped the Stormcage by faking good behavior, helping the church solve a crime by planting a false lead, and then solving the mystery for them. He then proceeded to go on a killing streak of close to a hundred humans and aliens. For _Her_ the parole program mostly ended in trouble. The Church developed a personal grudge against her due to the death of at least sixteen bishops and cardinals and other church-ish types. _She_ even killed Pope John the LXI, indirectly, but the Church blamed _Her_ anyways. That got _Her_ sentence extended and the parole programs ended for awhile. _She_ was held personally responsible for the deforestation on Proxima Nine, due to the shear amount of paperwork caused by _Her_ antiqies.

And then, one day, _She _did not return. For a week, they waited. Some of the psychiatrists even started checking obituaries, hoping they might discover the key to _Her_ entire existance. But they never succeeded, because _She_ never came back. After three weeks, the head warden at the time demanded that they clean out _Her_ cell and prepare it for another inmate. The guards refused. The administrators, wary as ever of _Her_ cell, tentatively cleaned out the cell, throwing _Her_ belongings in storage in the hope that _She_ might, one day, return. However, the guards commandeered the Horrifying Prince of Doom, and they gave the teddy bear the seat of honor in the soliders' mess. Forever and always, the little bear looked down on them, as a reminder of the strangest prisoner the Stormcage ever had.

And – as time progressed in a strictly linear and rather boring fashion – _She_ became a legend; immortalized by a teddy bear and a universe-wide record for breaking out of the jail the most times while serving a life sentence in the Stormcage.


End file.
